I hope this letter finds you well. Finally, my family and I have settled into our new home. It is an incredibly quaint cottage just a few blocks from the French Quarter. Marshall started his job last week, and Tommy starts his first day of third grade tomorrow. We have already grown quite found of this city after being here only a month. There is such a variety of people moving at all hours of the day and night in the very center of the city. We quickly learned that the bars have no closing hour, that the food is delightfully spicy, and that the music is pulsating almost everywhere. The locals talk funny, but seldom have southern accents. New Orleans is simply not like any other southern city. Quickly, I discovered that French is the prevailing language of the city and the dominant religion is Catholicism. Not only is there an incredible amount of Negros, Spaniards, and French, but also a significant settlement of Italians, Greeks, Croatians and Filipinos. We took a ride on a St. Charles streetcar that went from the exotic French Quarter through a business district more like that of the rest of America, and then through neighborhoods such as the lower and upper Garden Districts that look a little like Charleston or Savannah. Further still, we rode through the University district, neighborhoods emerge filled with beautiful Victorian homes. The streetcar then drove us on a passage through historical eras and their evolving architectural taste. Indeed, one of the city's nicknames, the Crescent City, came from the pattern of its growth along the river, which made a large bend through the delta starting at the original French settlement and moving out to the once separate town of Carrollton. I think you'd particularly be fond of Magazine Street. It has a diversity of ethnic shops. And, of course, you'd fancy a stroll through the unique cemeteries, called "the Cities of the Dead,". They vividly show the multiplicity of names, birthplaces and languages of the various peoples who made up the population of the Crescent City. What is most intriguing about the city is its ability to fashion a public culture that transcends all of its varied peoples. Everyone is more than a mosaic of identities, instead, they have to share a new cultural identity. Neither race nor nationality excludes any group from this common ground. What the city's denizens celebrate is less the Old World cultures of their ancestors and more the new way of life that evolved in New Orleans. The food, the festival, the music are shared pleasures, because somehow a novel ethnicity, born of the New World, has emerged in New Orleans. Creole cuisine, jazz and other forms of local music, Mardi Gras — all these famous attributes of the city give New Orleans a powerful sense of identity. It is a live culture that I hope you will come and experience with us soon.
My Dearest Channel Bellbottum,
I hope this letter finds you well. Finally, my family and I have settled into our new home. It is an incredibly quaint cottage just a few blocks from the French Quarter. Marshall started his job last week, and Tommy starts his first day of third grade tomorrow. We have already grown quite found of this city after being here only a month.
There is such a variety of people moving at all hours of the day and night in the very center of the city. We quickly learned that the bars have no closing hour, that the food is delightfully spicy, and that the music is pulsating almost everywhere. The locals talk funny, but seldom have southern accents. New Orleans is simply not like any other southern city.
Quickly, I discovered that French is the prevailing language of the city and the dominant religion is Catholicism. Not only is there an incredible amount of Negros, Spaniards, and French, but also a significant settlement of Italians, Greeks, Croatians and Filipinos. We took a ride on a St. Charles streetcar that went from the exotic French Quarter through a business district more like that of the rest of America, and then through neighborhoods such as the lower and upper Garden Districts that look a little like Charleston or Savannah. Further still, we rode through the University district, neighborhoods emerge filled with beautiful Victorian homes. The streetcar then drove us on a passage through historical eras and their evolving architectural taste. Indeed, one of the city's nicknames, the Crescent City, came from the pattern of its growth along the river, which made a large bend through the delta starting at the original French settlement and moving out to the once separate town of Carrollton. I think you'd particularly be fond of Magazine Street. It has a diversity of ethnic shops. And, of course, you'd fancy a stroll through the unique cemeteries, called "the Cities of the Dead,". They vividly show the multiplicity of names, birthplaces and languages of the various peoples who made up the population of the Crescent City.
What is most intriguing about the city is its ability to fashion a public culture that transcends all of its varied peoples. Everyone is more than a mosaic of identities, instead, they have to share a new cultural identity. Neither race nor nationality excludes any group from this common ground. What the city's denizens celebrate is less the Old World cultures of their ancestors and more the new way of life that evolved in New Orleans. The food, the festival, the music are shared pleasures, because somehow a novel ethnicity, born of the New World, has emerged in New Orleans. Creole cuisine, jazz and other forms of local music, Mardi Gras — all these famous attributes of the city give New Orleans a powerful sense of identity. It is a live culture that I hope you will come and experience with us soon.
Sincerely,
Jaqueline Corduroy